contango 

HI all, I'm back after something of an absence. Quite a few things have changed since I was last posting. Sadly my trusty Specialized Tricross is no more, having absorbed one shock too many the frame broke and I retired it. As I prepared to emigrate I gave the serviceable parts (basically the entire bike less the broken frame and my self-built rear wheel) to a friend. Now all I have is my Rockhopper.

I like the Rockhopper but it really wants to be ridden on something more demanding than tarmac with the odd bit of gravel thrown in. And sadly, having gotten out of the habit of regular cycling, much of the weight I managed to shed during my days riding brevets has made its way back. I want to shake off the weight, I suspect something more like a road bike would be the way to go, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on it because the brutal truth is I don't know if I'll ride it any more than I currently ride my Rockhopper.

I will want something that can cope with gravel roads (there are a few of them around here, some of which make good alternatives to sharing a narrow winding road with logging trucks). It doesn't need to be a superfast machine, I wasn't superfast before gaining weight.

I've seen a 2015 Kona ***** Tonk for sale (it looks like a new bike that's sat in a bike shop for a while) but I'm concerned that putting a double on the front is going to make it harder to haul my fat ass up a sustained gradient.

To be perfectly honest it's possible I'll end up doing nothing until next year, I'm really just looking for ideas. Back in England I could ride more or less all year, even if I did ride less during December and January. Here in Pennsylvania I don't really have any interest in riding in several inches of snow, and the hot humid summers leave me needing more water than I can sensibly carry.

If anyone wants to throw a few ideas out I'd be interested to read them.

copperfind

I prefer road bike rides for many reasons though I will go bomb out on my old MTB in the woods now and then. I have been as heavy as 290lbs (130kg) and ride an aluminum road bike frame that is 31 years old so I would not worry about going full road bike. Also, you can get a triple on many bikes or as most prefer for several issues the 50/34T compact front crank combine that with a nice 12-32 in the back and you can ride up walls. I am riding an 11-28 and have little no troubles with most average climbs.

ill.clyde

Don't have much advice to offer, but it's nice to see another familiar face return to the Clydes/Athenas forum

I was away and returned also.

As someone who is a former flatlander, and now must cope with the hills of south/southwestern Wisconsin, I love my triple though it's getting long in the tooth. Not even sure how many triples are made these days.

I too, am looking for a newer bike, and I'll probably go the route of the compact with a 32 somewhere in the back. I can't decide between AL/Ti/Carbon at this point, but my heart belongs to a new Bianchi Infinito. She calls to me daily. That said, I've told myself I can only get a new bike when I lose 50 pounds ... I have 33 left to go

Erwin8r

Ditto what the others have said--a compact double with a 12-32 out back should climb anything... that's the combo I rock on my bike. Get the Kona, if it calls to you...

pdlamb

Touring bike? Built to carry a load; many models you can get the bars up higher, so the (ahem) larger stomach doesn't interfere with pedaling; you can put on lighter tires to reduce wheel weight. Goes long distances on roads (or decently surfaces trails or paths).

MRT2

Kona has a variety of road, or roadish bikes for not too much money. The Rove, Sutra or Tonk all come to mind as possibilities. Alternately, Surly Straggler. Finally, the Fairdale Weekender Drop looks good. Not the lightest or the fastest, but it comes with a SRAM 1 x 10, 42 tooth chainring, and 11 - 40 cassette.

sdmc530

Agreed! Or a cross bike as well. A bit heavier built works well for me as a "road bike"

cyclist2000

Same thought that I had when I started reading OP. Road bike, make to be loaded and handles better loaded. I'm not sure of the price range of the OP but if I was looking of another touring bike it would be a Kona Sutra on the lower end or a custom Ti frame (I have always wanted a Ti frame.

contango 

Thanks everybody. I'm wanting to keep the budget down as far as is sensible (although "down" is still defined fairly vaguely it means I'm expecting to be looking at Sora/Tiagra components or equivalent - I'm not looking for full carbon or Ultegra or higher. 105 isn't out of the question but I've always been satisfied at 2009 Tiagra level, so 2015 Sora should work)

My concerns are firstly with having a double because I often found I needed the triple to get up the bigger hills. On my Tricross I had a 50-39-30 triple paired with a 9-speed 11-32 at the back and found a number of hills where I used the 30-32 combo. Shifting to a 50-34 double means the best I can get is a 34-32 combo, which is more than a 10% increase in gearing. I know I'm going to be walking a few hills until I shed some of the excess weight, but I'd rather not make life any harder for myself. My second concern is that a couple of reviews I've read of the Honk-Tonk (apparently the actual first word is censored) suggests many of the parts are particularly cheap. I'd swap out the rear wheel right away because I've got a pretty rear wheel I built myself, but I don't really want to be dropping $800 on a bike and then almost immediately needing to be upgrading parts.

Part of trying to pick through all the ranges was because previously I naturally gravitated towards Specialized just because I quite liked them. With the new range I can't find a Tricross that fits me well (my 2009 was a slightly uneasy fit but it worked), and seeing brands I hadn't really come across before leaves me wondering which brands are good and which ones are less good, and of course wanting something that isn't going to break when I put my 275-odd pound bulk on it, especially since I can be prone to apply brute force rather than finesse to get up short sharp hills.

The 11-40 cassette paired with a 42t single at the front sounds good at the low end although I would like a little more at the top end. It's not entirely necessary - the only time I use the very top end is if I'm giving gravity a helping hand down a hill, I just prefer not to be spinning out in my maximum gear.

One thing that is crucial is that the bike must be able to cope with gravel roads, the ones we call dirt roads or mountain roads around here. The hill between me and the nearest state forest is long and steep, and winding, and all manner of honking great trucks go up it. I'd really rather not be sharing a narrow road with a stonking great logging truck when I'm struggling to go much faster than walking pace. With the best will in the world, the law might say a driver has to give me four feet to pass but a truck not wanting to slow to a crawl and then be stuck at 4mph all the way up the hill is inevitably going to be tempted to try and squeeze past. As far as possible I'd prefer to avoid creating the situation that causes the temptation - I know what the truck driver should do but if they don't then I'm the squishy bag of bones that takes the brunt of it.

contango 

This might sound like a silly question, but will disk brakes on a road-ish bike make a big difference over rim brakes?

The wheel I built before I moved has a pretty blue Hope hub in it, but it's not a disk hub. When I built the wheel I made the decision (that I now wish I had made differently) not to use a hub with a mount for a disk because I figured I wouldn't need a disk. Now I'm split between wanting to use my pretty wheel, but not wanting to be stuck with rim brakes for ever and ever if the best course of action would be to buy a new hub and rebuild the wheel, or merely sell the wheel and start over if I find I need a new wheel.

ill.clyde

Re: Disc brakes ... It's one of my current quandaries as well. Wife and I went to a bike shop last week, ostensibly to look and for her to start looking at bikes to get a sense of what she may like, and the guy there, while nice, was bad mouthing disc brakes left and right. Now mind you, the area I live in (and where this bike shop is) is hilly as hell ... and to me, in a case like this, disc brakes make a whole lot of sense. If I'm bombing down a hill I want to know, for sure, that when I reach for my brakes they'll perform as expected.

Have you looked at the Spesh Diverge? It has clearance for wider tires (gravel roads) and some models have disc brakes. Might be a bit beyond your budget though. Not sure where it stands on the chainring size though. I'm coming from a triple as well, and have never ridden a compact double, so I'm skeptical.

Mack3601

I have a friend who just bought the Diverge. His has hydraulic disk brakes. He is really enjoying it.

MRT2

IMO, the issue with a 1 X drivetrain isn't top end speed. A 42 - 11 big gear is 103 gear inches. will take you close to over 27 mph at 90 rpm. I usually coast or feather the brakes when I find myself going faster than 30 mph, but that is me. The issue is whether the advantages of a 1x are worth having big jumps between gears.

copperfind

I test rode a couple of Sora bikes before deciding to upgrade my vintage bike to a compact crank 9 speed... I found them to be creaky and not very smooth... I believe most the noise was coming from the not so great crank and BB on the sora equipped bikes... both specialized bikes.

As I mentioned earlier I am around 270 now but have been upward of 290 and I have put around 750 miles on my current bike, a 30 year old aluminum frame which had an older dura ace crank on it and a 7 speed set up. I have around 70 miles on since switching to an FSA compact crank (carbon pro) and all 105 9 11-28 speed with aeoromax 24 spoke wheels. I have not broken a thing yet and have had not had over concern with truing the wheels.

I hear what you are saying about the climbs and if I could go to a 12-30 rear I would... Havent tried yet but numbers say 27 is biggest for 105 but I may still give it a shot. Even with the 28 I am finishing my climbs, just have to concentrate on gear selection and conserve my legs, usually try not going below 70-75 rpms on climbs.

My point being dont sell out on a straight road bike if that is what your interested in, I am not smashing my 30 year old aluminum you should be able find a road bike that will hold up just fine.

My bike

squirtdad

couple of questions

why carbon? is this an absolute?

sounds like you work on our bikes....you could considering building from scratch....normally not cost effective, but here is an idea that would give very nice ride with buying a group from england

Used frame $200-300 (C&V for sale has some nice stuff is steel works and WTB often works)

as an example 250 for a paramount frame
https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...rame-fork.html

full 105 11 speed group $370 https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/shima...uble-groupset/

nice 105 H+Son 32 spoke wheel set $190 H + plus Son TB14 Black 32h - Shimano 105 5800 hubs Wheelset [74018] - $190.00 Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike

have to add some thing for saddle, seatpost, stem, pedals, tires, tubes, rim tape depending on what is in your parts stash say $200?

so you can end up with a super nice bike for 800 to 1000

ps nashbar has carbon frames for $600, but if you sign up for their email you can often get 20 to 30 percent off I would trust them a bit more than non name ebay frame Nashbar Carbon Road Frame and Fork

contango 

I know it's not a big thing but sometimes if I'm on a huge hill and gravity alone is going to take me into the high 30s I want to give it a little nudge to try and push into the 40s. Not a huge thing, but just something I'd like to be able to do. One of my local hills is enough to freewheel into the high 30s, but trying to push to 40 isn't going to happen with a 44-11 top gear.

contango 

Carbon? I really don't need carbon. I'd go for carbon if I needed to save some weight, and if I wanted to save weight I'd start by eating less cake

I do some work on bikes. I don't have the tools to do a total build - things like headset presses are beyond me. I know building wheels is considered a more advanced technique but when I trashed my back wheel (fully loaded meeting with Mr Pothole on a 35mph+ descent) I figured it was as good a time as any to learn to build wheels.

I wouldn't call myself an expert mechanic by any means (especially since I've done precisely no bike mechanics since about 2014) but I'm the kind of guy who generally isn't afraid to dig into stuff and see how it all works. My main concern is that round where I live there are plenty of rolling hills where getting speeds into the high 20s and low 30s, even without much pedalling, is likely. Naturally I'm concerned in case my mechanical skills turn out to be less comprehensive than is ideal.

I could really use some suggestions of good places to get parts in the US - I moved from the UK to Pennsylvania (and when I read your post realized I hadn't updated my profile). If you (or others) can recommend some parts suppliers in the US that are worth visiting (or note who is worth avoiding) that would be a big help. I used to use Wiggle and Chain Reaction in the UK, it would be great to find a supplier with a reputation as good as theirs this side of the Atlantic.

My parts bin doesn't have a whole lot in it. I think I've got a couple of 9-speed chains, a saddle and some pedals. I've got my pretty rear wheel with a 25mm Schwalbe Durano Plus (I'll need something fatter, since I'm also fatter) and I think that's about it.

squirtdad

just to note, i listed the UK bike shop because the prices on things like groups or tubular tires a way better than you can get in the US, often with free shipping. a lot of people on the forums take adavantage of this

a few places to check out for parts

nashbar can be hit or miss but the have good deals Bikes, Cycling Clothing, Bike Parts & Cycling Gear: Bike Discounts & Deals from Nashbar

niagra ton's of stuff https://www.niagaracycle.com/

jenson Jenson USA - Online mountain & road bike parts, clothing and accessories shop | Jenson USA

bens https://www.benscycle.com/

velo orange new, vintage like parts Velo Orange

velomine (good for wheelsets) Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike

contango 

UK cheaper than the US? That's a surprise, for most things I've bought (admittedly mostly techie doodads rather than bike bits) the US has been appreciably cheaper. I know GBP/USD is very low right now (~1.30, I'm more used to it somewhere around 1.60), and of course having stuff shipped out of the UK means you don't get charged the hideous 20% VAT, but I'm still surprised at it being cheaper to ship stuff from there. If that's the case it means I can stick with Wiggle, who have always done me well.

I'll check out the other resources, and ponder. I won't do much until it gets a bit cooler, my system is going to struggle with riding in these conditions until I get into slightly better shape.